An American Absent From Paris

What are we to make of the Obama administration’s absence from the international show of solidarity in Paris this past Sunday? One of America’s closest historic allies suffers a mass tragedy in its capital city. Islamic extremists wantonly kill Christians and Jews. The country is outraged. Citizens of all stripes — religious and secular, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim — converge for a massive rally for decency and humanity and against the distortion of a major religion’s teachings. The leaders of Europe attend; they include the chancellor of Germany and the prime ministers of the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy. Russia sends its foreign minister. In an almost unprecedented show of solidarity the Israeli prime minister and Palestinian president attend. The prime minister of Turkey, long at odds with Israel, attends. So too does the king of Jordan accompanied by the queen, who is Palestinian. They all link arms.

But America’s president is not there. His vice president, who attends conferences in Europe, as well as funerals, is absent. The secretary of state, he who has already traveled hundreds of thousands of air miles, is nowhere to be found. Nor is the national security advisor. What is going on here?

It is no secret that President Barack Obama sees international affairs as a nuisance that deflects him from his domestic agenda. But he trumpets the values that America holds dear — freedom of speech, of religion, of the press. That was what the rally in Paris was all about. So where was he?

If the president couldn’t make it, if some major crisis — say, the Congressional vote over the XL Keystone pipeline — was forcing him to stay in Washington, why did he not dispatch Vice President Joe Biden? And if the vice president was consumed by some all-important, but highly secret issue (as no one seems to be aware of one), why didn’t Secretary of State John Kerry attend in his place? He has been trying for years to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Mahmoud Abbas, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey, all of them critical actors in the search for peace in the Middle East, were marching in the same row, a few feet from each other. What an opportunity awaited the secretary of state. Yet he too must have been consumed by some secret project, presumably in cooperation with National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who also was far too busy to attend something inconsequential like a million-person demonstration led by 40 heads of state and government. And then there was Attorney General Eric Holder, who actually was in Paris, but could not find the time to attend the march. He too must have been very busy this Sunday.

The administration has announced it is convening an international forum, in which none other than Eric Holder no doubt will have a featured role, to discuss new ways to fight terrorism. So yet another conference on terrorism will take place, as if anyone but the attendees, their staffs, and those who study the subject will take much interest. How serious is the administration about the violence that took place in Paris and the people’s reaction to it? The giveaway is that the White House announcement speaks of “violent extremists,” as if this were some generic term. The words “Islamic terrorists” remains taboo, even though hundreds of millions of Muslims are outraged by the hijacking of their religion by bloodthirsty terrorists. Those who are evil should be called by their real name.

The administration trumpets America as the indispensable leader of the Free World. On Sunday, January 11, 2015, America looked very much dispensable. Not because others ignored it, but because its leaders in Washington, of their own volition, opted out of what may have been the most important demonstration for decency since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Written in sadness.

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